Do You Consider Yourself a Smoker?

jamespworth · Mar 12, 2016

I started smoking a pipe on and off in 2012, before this I smoked cigars but I have never been a cigarette smoker. I only really smoke at home. I often get asked do you smoke? (usually an offer to come outside for a cigarette) and my answer is no.Obviously this is just a practical answer as I have no pipe with me and don't want to smoke a cigarette with them and they aren't interested in what I get up to at home but it got me thinking.
When I started out I only occasionally smoked my pipe maybe a couple of times a week at most but now I do it daily it is part of my life and I enjoy it.
I think the public perception of a smoker does not include exclusive pipe and or cigar smoking and as such no one really knows I smoke a pipe, besides my immediate family and friends. So in some ways I am a bit of a secret pipe smoker even though I don't do anything to hide the fact I smoke a pipe, it's just not a topic that is often raised.
Just thought I would put it out there and see your opinions. I appreciate lots of you will smoke your pipe out and about but I would guess there is a fair few who just smoke at home like me.
Welcome to the Forum! Fixed thread title, please see rule number 9. Pertinent portion: Please capitalize words in the thread titles. Thank you, Robert.

jollyroger · Mar 12, 2016

Yes. I do consider pipe smoking smoking. I induce nicotine absorbed from smoke.

But I usually don't go along with cigarette smokers, simply because they want to light up a quick one, get their fix and get on with whatever they were doing. For me it's about kicking back, taking my time and enjoying the ride.
So when questioned or proposed, I do politely refuse and say I don't smoke cigarettes. This usually generates a mischievous smile and inquiries as to what I do smoke, which leads to more interesting conversation later on.

ray47 · Mar 12, 2016

I usually smoke my pipe at home. It's rare to see me away from the house with my pipe. If I'm out and about I usually have a pack of cigarettes. Works for me and that's what it's all about.

pappymac · Mar 12, 2016

Yes. If you light a pipe on a daily basis then you are a smoker. That being said, when I do my regular check-ups with my doctor he never put's "smoker" in his notes. I've been seeing him since 1997 and he knows I like an occasional cigar and a pipe.

markus · Mar 12, 2016

I hadn't given it much thought until 6 months ago, I had to go into the hospital for an out-patient precedure to be done. My wife was sitting there with me when the nurse was taking down my info asked if I was a smoker and out of habit, I replied "No I wasn't". Then my wife says "What about your pipes and cigars?" and the nurse said "Oh so you are a smoker?". I admitted to smoking pipes and cigars, but not cigarettes and she said that still classifies me as a smoker. So as far as hospitals, insurance companies and probably society in general is concerned, we are all "smokers".

bonehed · Mar 12, 2016

Yes... and a joker... and occasionally... a midnight toker.

jkrug · Mar 12, 2016

Yes... and a joker... and occasionally... a midnight toker.

Mr Miller...is it really you?? 8O :lol:
I don't...but in reality I guess I really am a smoker. : puffy

:

jamespworth · Mar 12, 2016

Yes I work in insurance I know it is classed as smoking for sure, as are E Cigs and any other form of Nicotine from an insurance point of view. Really referring more to how you see your selves. As the first thing people think if you say you smoke is Cigs.
I agree smoking is smoking but as we all know it's quite different.

derfargin · Mar 12, 2016

Yeah, I'm a smoker, I smoke pipes and cigars and when the time and very rare place call for it, I'll smoke a cig or 10.
But anytime I'm asked if I'm a smoker on medical forms, I always say no. I'll let them prove that.

warren · Mar 12, 2016

Sure.

didimauw · Mar 12, 2016

Absolutely

mso489 · Mar 12, 2016

On this, I feel a bit phony. On Forums, I'm a pipe smoker, intermittently in my life, but of long-standing. When I fill out my doctor's form, I check smoking, but then pencil in, "pipes/minimal," which by the standards of nail smokers who smoke for hours at a stretch or all day, compared to my one or two bowls, or none a day, is true. Right now, getting over a chest/head cold, I'm a non-smoker. The categories illustrate the dogmatic thinking on this. I've lived with chain smoking, my late wife (who did not die of smoking related causes) and my sense is, the difference between my pipe habit and three/four/more packs a day is simply not comparable. Incidentally, when she bravely quit, I quit (my pipe) too, for solidarity, and didn't smoke again except very moderately, as now, after she was gone, for solace. My current wife was a chain smoker of Camels and Galoise (sp?) but finally, wisely quit many years before we married. My dad smoked nearly all day, Granger in one pipe at a time (no rotation) from age 15 until 65 when he quit cold turkey to feel more comfortable in a no-smoking job situation. He died at 89 licensed to drive without corrective lenses.

deathmetal · Mar 12, 2016

I think the public perception of a smoker does not include exclusive pipe and or cigar smoking

When the public says smoker, they mean cigarettes, so my answer is NO.
Some ask if you are a tobacco user. My answer, "More like tobacco's biggest fan!" rarely pleases anyone.

michiganlover · Mar 12, 2016

When asked if I'm a smoker, I say no.
I don't want to be associated with the negative stereotypes of cigarette smokers.
I also don't have a nicotine addiction that controls my life as cigarette smokers do.
Although I smoke my pipe everyday, I also don't walk around with foul smelling clothes the way cigarette smokers do.
So no I'm not a smoker.

sablebrush52 · Mar 12, 2016

Absolutely, yes. That ain't just snot coming out of my nostrils when I retrohale. On a recent visit to a doctor, the intake form asked if I smoke cigarettes and I wrote no. Had it asked if I was a smoker, I would have written yes and added "pipe, outdoors only".

gnome · Mar 12, 2016

whether you drink beer, wine, or whiskey, your a drinker.If you light tobacco, your a smoker, so...Yes.

warren · Mar 12, 2016

Michigan: How many days can you go without a pipe? Just asking out of curiosity. If you wear clothes when smoking you do reek of of stale, old smoke. You just do not notice it. The smoke settles onto your clothes and into your hair. Can't avoid it. It's just one of the benefits of smoking, the reek keeps people at a distance.
Do not kid yourself, society looks down on smoking with no regard as to your choice of nicotine delivery system. Just accept yourself for who your are, be content with your choice of vice. A smoker shouldn't need all sorts of caveats. Just enjoy smoking.

cigrmaster · Mar 12, 2016

Until they catch me on video with a pipe in my mouth then no freaking way. Go see what happens to your insurance rates. Not so long ago, insurance companies could tell you to pound sand if you were a smoker.

jamespworth · Mar 12, 2016

whether you drink beer, wine, or whiskey, your a drinker.If you light tobacco, your a smoker, so...Yes.

Not quite the same thing as naming different drinks is like naming different types of tobacco not different methods of getting it into your body. I don't inhale my pipe so I'm taking the nicotine in through my mouth gums etc not my lungs.
Its more like the difference between drinking alcohol or pouring alcohol in your eye in my opinion as crazy as that sounds.
Like I say I'm not saying I'm not a smoker I am but as lots of you have pointed out the term smoker carries the stigma of Cigarette smokers which I am not I'm a pipe smoker.

stvalentine · Mar 12, 2016

Natural born smoker - yes!

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